4th and 5th Grade Bottle Cap Mural

 Why does it seem like it's been such a long time since I've posted a bottle cap project? It's because it has been a really long time since I've done one! I had wall space picked out in my school last year when I was approached by our  local Dublin branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library to create a piece for them. I thought it sounded like a capital idea. The library had very specific ideas for the content of their mural, so I had students submit sketches. That is as far as it got. Between having a spring quarter student teacher and getting busy with my art show, it just never happened.

I finally got in gear this year. All in all, I decided I liked the idea of doing bottle cap murals every other year. It is such a huge, time consuming project that it just makes more sense not to do it every year. With the new format, I included both 4th and 5th grade students. 

I run this mural as a side project for early finishers at the beginning. After compiling several of the best sketches, I drew out the design on the boards that students had primed. Over the course of a couple of weeks, students paint the background with latex house paint. They then clean up paint edges with a super thick black marker once all of the painting is finished. At that point, the mural is ready for caps. I have each table of students help apply caps using a hot glue gun. When a board is finished, I screw in the caps with these screws. Luckily I had lots of help with the screws this year because my contact at the library recruited her staff to lend a hand.

Newest Bottle Cap Art Installed!

When we do bottle cap art at Thomas, we go big. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may recall that my 4th Grade students created a new bottle cap mural last year specifically for the library. Here is a link to the original post. The mural was installed over the summer and it looks great! I thought I would post a few pictures of the finished piece.

4th Grade Bottle Cap Mural

This project seems to be a favorite among students, parents, and blog readers.  This is the third year in a row the 4th grade has created a bottle cap mural for permanent display in the school.  The previous two have gone in separate stairwells, but this mural will be placed in four side-by-side windows in the library.  This year, students decided to make Dr. Seuss characters and spell out the word 'READ' on the mural.

In the past, I've gotten a many questions about how this process is done, so I'll describe it in more detail this year.  Of course, if anyone has questions, please feel free to post a question in the comments area or email me directly.  The work is all inspired by Michelle Stitzlein, a local artist who works with school groups and has quite an impressive collection of her own fine art work.  She focuses on the use of recycled materials in her art.

First, the boards are primed with a latex primer.  The design is then drawn out with sharpie and the whole mural is painted with either latex or acrylic paints.  This gives the mural a base color and allows for some spaces to stand alone without caps if need be.  Sharpie is again used to clean up edges and define colors.  The next part can be done a couple of different ways.  I know some people like to do all the caps at one time and bring in parent volunteers with cordless drills to help out.  I like working on it gradually.  I just have the kids carefully hot glue the caps on the boards then I put screws into the caps later on.  I use these screws.  To give an idea of how many to buy, I used right around 2000 screws for the mural this year.

4th Grade Bottle Cap Mural

The bottlecap mural completed last spring has been hung in the stairwell over the summer. It looks fantastic! Here are a couple views of the finished product. The mural is the same size as the one done last year, 16' x 4'. Great job 4th grade!

4th Grade Bottle Cap Mural

For the 2nd consecutive year, the fourth grade classes have created a mural that will be on permanent display at our school.  This mural is inspired by an Ohio artist named Michelle Stitzlein.  Michelle's work includes mostly recycled materials.  Keeping with the recycled art theme, the mural was made out of plastic bottle caps.  The theme for this mural is bugs.  Each class created a 4'x4' panel with one bug on it.  The pictures above show each panel as a separate piece as well as an image of what the mural will look like when it is put together.  I will post more pictures once the mural is put up over the summer. 

Bottle Cap Mural by 4th Grade

The bottle cap mural is finally up! The fourth grade students started this 16' x 4' mural well before the end of the school year. For this project, we really focused on using recycled materials that would otherwise be thrown away and take up space in a landfill. The idea of using bottle caps comes from a local artist named Michelle Stitzlein who came in to talk to the 4th graders about using recycled materials in art. The mural was a great success and I'm excited for everyone to see it put together. Notice how big the mural is compared to me!